An autoethnography of a Spanish language teacher in Brazil: contributions of a translingual pedagogy

Abstract

The objective of this article is to propose interpretations of local social life. For this, the assumptions of self-ethnography, Applied Linguistics (FABRÍCIO, 2006; MOITA LOPES, 2006) and transilingual studies (GARCÍA, 2009; CANAGARAJAH, 2013; GARCÍA; LI, 2014; FERNANDES; SALGADO, 2020) are assumed to make a brief incursion into a scene of a Spanish class in a group of first year of secondary education, in a public school in the city of Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais. In this movement of resuscitating memories, reliving dizziness, and awakening ghosts in the experience of narrating and saying oneself (CRISTÓVÃO, 2018), it is argued that transilingual practices, which emerge through local interaction, are part of a dynamic, authorial and dialogical process. Thus, from this a perspective, it is argued that assuming transilingual lenses in the teaching of Spanish in Brazil is essential so that we can get out of our comfort zone and put aside old beliefs that reproduce, in the 21st century, social injustices with groups. Likewise, it is argued that a translingual pedagogy (GARCÍA, 2014) is a productive path for the promotion of social justice, since its lenses imply recognizing, accommodating, and negotiating meanings typical of idiosyncratic repertoires.